Explorer 6/8 review

[Fairyduster]

I posted this on the Explorer thread, but thought I should give it it's own for people who don't like to go all through that one!

 

I've written a review on my 6/8 Explorer of the Seas sailing..If I compare it to Carnival at any point it's for people who want to see the difference between the two...I know people love RCI so please don't bash me for it.

 

Ship-I went on this trip with my friend Lorraine. She's in her early 40's and I'm 29. We stayed in Grand Suite 1284. The room and the balcony were great. I got a bit seasick staying aft on my last cruise and had practically no problems on this voyage. The one thing I really liked about this ship was that there was always something to do at night. On the Carnival ship things just died around 11. They had some great singers. Dean was great, but I really loved Ben Robert who played in the Schooner Bar..I saw him practically every night. I saw the impressionist who I liked and Vibology. I love to rollerblade so I took advantage of the track. Our concierge was helpful, but we only went to the lounge a couple of times. They had a brunch for suite and diamond members the 2nd day. I've never eaten some many chocolate covered strawberries in my life.

 

Some of the bad-For the most part, I really didn't like most of the food. I thought the food on Carnival was twice as good. I ended up going to Johnny Rocket's 3 times...I did like the food in the Cafe Promenade and Portofinos.

We had some service problems. I don't think it's a shipwide problem but I think we had some bad luck. Our room steward was incredibly unfriendly and in Puerto Rico when we got back to the room around 2 it had not been made up. We called to find out what happened when I woman from housekeeping came to the room she gave us no reason why it wasn't done. My friend asked whether it was just forgotten. The response was: "No, they didn't forget it.". I really resented it because it made it seem like we had done something wrong. We hadn't. We didn't give the guy a hard time or anything. We also had some other random problems with him. We were originally at a table for two, but switched to a larger table because we wanted to meet more people. We couldn't of been more happy with our tablemates but the first thing they did was warn us about the service. Dinner took forever and our waiter was constantly screwing up our orders. We were getting our dinners as other people were leaving for the night. On the last night, the salads at our table were brown and the cofffee ice cold. The head waiter came up to us the last night and gave this long winded apology. Every time he was interrupted he started again. A simple "I'm sorry" or something short would of gone over much better. He proceeded to blame our asst waiter for all the problems. She was standing just a few feet away. She was obviously new and made some mistakes but was NOT the problem with the service we had. Our table was pretty mad at the way he had embarrassed her and one couple decided not to give him a tip. I think we all went to her and told her how much we liked her...I know I gave her a little something extra for the tip...Debarkation was another problem...when our color got called we went to get off the ship..me and another woman got through but someone from the ship stopped everybody else and we were waiting for our travelmates...The woman refused to let them through saying out color hadn't been called even though there was a ton of people down there all with our color. They finally let them out. When we finally went to get to our luggage it was unavailable. I asked a woman where it was and she said our color "hadn't been called yet"...I told her that we were here so it had been called and she said "Well it shouldn't of been!!"...She was definitely a little rude and seemed to have no idea what was going on.

 

Ports

Bermuda-The weather sucked. We did the St George tour. The island is

definitely beautiful. I would of loved to see it in better weather. Our tour guide put people to sleep though..literally...lol...there were people who fell asleep on the bus.

 

St Maarten-We did the Loterie Farm hike. The description says this is a moderate hike. NO WAY. The mountain is so steep there's ropes on the side and you're literally pulling yourself up. The view made it worth it though, but I think the description is really misleading. It was the two of us and a family of five. They put us in a smaller bus where we sat for 45 minutes...finally I got up and went out and found someone who told our driver to go. I guess they forgot about us...Afterward we went to Bayside Stables for a private ride. My horse freaked out and I ended up getting thrown off of it. My entire foot was bruised and everyone told me that I probably fractured a bone. I could walk though so I didn't bother seeing the doctor...I'm just happy I wasn't more seriously hurt.

 

St Thomas/St John-Went on the St John for a tour in the morning. What a beautiful island!! I can't wait to go back. We hired a taxi driver to give us a tour of St Thomas when we returned. I just loved both islands...

 

Puerto Rico-When we got off the ship we hired a tour guide for tour....Not worth it!!! Save your money...The guy drove us around San Juan where we got off at this really dumpy beach...Nothing about this tour was worth it. We toured one of the forts and then just walked around Old San Juan...

 

I really think a lot of the problems I had on this trip were bad luck. I've read that people here got off the ship just fine and I know that there were people who were raving about their room stewards. We had great waitresses in the bars, but people have asked me what I thought about RCI, I've said the ship was great, but we had service problems. I would still recommend them and there was nothing so bad where I wouldn't travel with them again...I think I'll try NCL next though...

 

Here are my pics:

http://community.webshots.com/user/JustJessi1

Zotzer, I think I saw you in the Schooner Bar watching Ben...I thought I recognized you from your icon pic but I wasn't sure it was you!

[raina*faith]

Thanks for your review. We've been on her before but we won't be on her again until June of 08 so it's good to read the reviews in the meantime.

Do you think the weather in Bermuda was bad for that time of the year? (June?)

[Fairyduster]

I think it was a random, large storm system...the said the weather is usually good this time of year.